


broken in my throat

by incandescent (lmeden)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Fingering, Armor, Armor Kink, Biting, Blow Jobs, Clothed Sex, Desk Sex, Dream Sex, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Fingerfucking, First Kiss, First Time, Genderbending, Genderswap, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, Lazy Mornings, Lazy Sex, M/M, Magic, Magic Fingers, Peripheral Plot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Rough Sex, Rule 63, Sex Magic, Strangulation, Telepathy, Vaginal Fingering, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 05:22:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/incandescent
Summary: Five times Loki came to Tony, and one time Tony brought Loki back





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhenasInSilks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenasInSilks/gifts).



> This was written for R, who is always encouraging me in my writing, and who is an amazing friend despite being 3,000 miles away. She told me that I could write frostiron, so I did. This was meant to be a series of short PWPs, but plot snuck in nonetheless. This has already been posted in full [on my tumblr](https://ghoill.tumblr.com/tagged/broken-in-my-throat) and I will be adding chapters here over the next few days as I get a chance to read through and edit them again. Unbeta-ed.
> 
> I consider this 'canon adjacent' because it contains only a little bit of plot and exists between MCU canon. It's roughly set after Civil War and Ragnarok, when Tony is struggling to find his place in a new world, Loki is on the long journey to Earth, and the shadow of Thanos has begun to loom. 
> 
> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Dubious Consent, Magic, Manipulation, Dreams, Blow jobs, Fingering

_There is an old language broken in my throat._

\--Sheryl Luna, from “River Ghost,” _Pity the Drowned Horses_

∇

The shattered window wails, carrying the ghostly whispers of the wind. Tony stands a few feet back, staring, drink clutched in his hands. He wonders why the hole isn’t shaped like the cartoon figure of a running man, the outline of his suit shining red and gold. Instead it is an amorphous hole. An anonymous, jagged mess.

Anyone could have been thrown through it. 

He can’t look away from the blue of the sky that hangs unbroken above him. There is a brush of cold fingers across the back of his neck, perhaps the memory of a place between death and the void, perhaps something more. 

“You think too much,” comes the whisper. It is smooth, cultured, and the breath that curls across the shell of his ear is warm. 

Tony jerks away. His drink sloshes and pours onto his fingers, which he lifts and licks clean from habit. 

The room is silent. There is no one behind him. The bar sits still and empty, overturned couches with legs reaching up toward the ceiling, the shattered floor gaping and papers scattering, tugged to and fro by the wind. 

Voices. His mind must be going. They’d always told him he was crazy. 

He’d nodded along and laughed because _of course_ he was crazy, wasn’t that obvious? But he’d also thought that he was a different kind of crazy than the one they expected, the kind that came with laughter and brilliance and grudgingly admiring biographies.

Not _voices_.

He has just lifted his drink again to take a sip when the voice comes again.

“Come now, Stark. Why do you run away?” Fingers curl around his arms and a body presses close to his back. It is one long line of hardness. 

Tony has a second of stunned incomprehension to lean back into it before he pulls away, wrenching himself free and whirling round. He throws the glass and watches it fly throw the opening in the window, fall through the open space beyond and vanish over the city streets. 

He knows that voice. Its identity lurks at the back of his mind, elusive as ever.

“That was good scotch,” he says to the empty room. “If you wanted a drink, all you had to do was ask.” Tony’s skin crawls with apprehension that he swallows down and hides. 

There are a few heartbeats of silence, long enough for Tony’s heart to begin to settle and believe that he is alone. 

Then the hands are back. They shove him from behind and he stumbles. He is grabbed and forced forward, all the way up against the wall, where he is pressed and half smothered. A hand holds the side of his face toward the wall, blocking his view of whoever is behind him. 

The body that presses against him is hard, clothed in leather and armor, and the other man smells of sweat and ozone crackling through the air. 

“I do not _ask_.” He is right there, lips brushing against Tony’s ear. His hand curls around the edge of Tony’s hip and Tony shivers, heat building in him. He twitches, a move at trying to get away. “Whatever I want, I take.”

The hand lifts from Tony’s face. He catches a glimpse of dark hair and the open sky beyond as the hands pull at his jeans. Loki – for it can only be _him_ – pulls Tony’s jeans and briefs down just over the curve of his ass, far enough that he can run his fingers over the cheeks, nails brushing across the skin in a caress. Tony shivers and bucks back, away, but Loki is stronger than him – he is a _god_ and Tony is nothing but human without his suit – and presses him to the wall. 

Nausea curls in Tony’s stomach. He clenches his teeth together and struggles to reach around and get purchase on something, _anything_ , that will allow him to get free.

“You asshole,” Tony hisses. “Aren’t you aliens supposed to have a sense of honor and chivalry? Let me go so I can fight you.”

Loki presses up against him, fingers digging into Tony’s ass. They work their way between the cheeks, deeper, and Tony shudders. 

“Where would be the fun in that?” Loki sighs, his voice a parody of intimacy. Tony swallows hard at the feeling that rises in him at the low burr in Loki’s tone. 

He twists, slamming his elbow back and turning, but into nothing. 

He is free. The room is empty. Tony has a second for shocked disbelief before Loki is there again, a flash of green and black and gold that presses so close that it steals his breath away. He forces Tony’s back to the wall, the edges of his armor digging into Tony. 

He can feel the hard line of Loki’s body all the way to his core. A flush crawls across his skin.

“Come now, Stark,” Loki laughs. “Play with me.”

His hand brushes across the edge of Tony’s t-shirt, pushing the edge back and curling around his cock. Tony jolts at the feeling that rushes through him. He is already half hard and hisses, pushing back at Loki. The other man doesn’t so much as budge. 

Loki’s chuckle is buried in the curve of his throat and he rubs the edge of his nails down the bottom of Tony’s cock. Tony shudders. 

“Get off,” he hisses through gritted teeth. 

“Now, now,” Loki says. “Is that what you really want?” 

With that, he drops to his knees and pushes Tony, unbalancing him. His breath is hot on Tony’s cock and his fingers dig into his hips, and without a pause to catch his breath he wraps his lips around Tony’s cockhead and sucks it in. 

“Ah!” Tony’s head hits the wall behind him. His fingers scrabble against it and then come forward, seeking purchase in Loki’s hair. It is greased and tangled and Tony tries to pull him away, but only succeeds in pulling him closer. 

Loki’s fingers move back, digging into his flesh and making Tony flinch, but the mouth wrapped around him is hot and mobile, lips tight and tongue truly _silver_ and he can’t help the way his breath catches. He curls his fingers into Loki’s hair and thinks _No_ but the only words that come to his lips are pleas that sound much more like _Yes_. 

Loki moves forward, swallowing more of Tony’s cock and sending rough jolts of pleasure moving across his skin. Loki’s pale skin is smooth and unbroken, no matter that Tony remembers him beaten and bruised, flesh purpling and dark circles crowding the space under his eyes. This Loki is triumphant and wry, his eyes shining gold and green and blue, lips quirking up around Tony’s cock and magic sparking against Tony’s skin and swarming through him to cloud his senses. 

It’s the magic, Tony thinks distantly. It must be. He feels drained, as if he can’t quite move, as if he isn’t even sure he _wants_ to fight back anymore. Loki’s fingers slide between his cheeks and brush across his hole. He bucks into Loki’s mouth, and Loki simply curls his lips tighter and swallows around Tony’s cock. 

Tony’s eyes slip closed and he tugs at Loki, willing him closer as the heat that burns through him rises higher and hotter, sharp on the inside of his veins and sticking to the back of his throat. He gasps. The tip of Loki’s finger slips into his hole. There is a spring winding tighter within him, his muscles clenching and breath stuttering. He is hard and desperate, and Loki’s finger works deeper with a slow burn.

Tony gasps and peels his eyes open to look down toward Loki, into the colors burning in his eyes, and sees instead his own sheets. 

They are tangled around him, tented over his throbbing erection. Stripes of morning sun pour across the bed and burn into his eyes. He is alone. 

Loki’s fingers are only a ghost, only in his mind.

Tony flinches back from himself and throws the sheets back, stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom. There he falls to his knees in front of the toilet and is sick, the cold touch of the tile floor stripping away the haze of his dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's dreams are getting more real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Rough Sex, Dubious Consent, Telepathy, Clothed Sex, Biting, Scratching, Strangulation

A governmental security briefing is _bit_ boring in the sense that cats are a _little_ unnerving and atoms are _slightly_ important and what was once a hole in Tony’s chest aches _sometimes_. 

There are no words to explain the myriad ways in which governmental briefings are stultifying, how they make the flesh on the back of Tony’s neck crawl and his stomach twist as he listens to men and women so dull as to be faceless list the statistics of death and apocalypse as if flicking dust from their sleeves. The world is crumbling around Tony, slipping right through his fingers, and there is nothing he can do about it. 

He shifts in his seat, gaze glancing across the presentation projection into the center of the room, and looks to Loki. 

He is the only thing in this room that snags Tony’s attention, and he may not even be real. None of the others in this meeting have so much as glanced at him, though he’s wearing a viciously tailored black suit and has seated himself right between the Mayor of New York and the woman’s secretary. When the young man looks up toward his boss, his gaze runs straight through Loki as if he’s invisible.

Tony wouldn’t put it past Loki, really, but these days it’s more likely that he’s just going crazy. 

Tony has been doing his best to keep his attention focused on the presentation and not the god sitting across the table from him, and so he doesn’t realize at first that Loki has stood and reached out. Tony flinches as Loki grasps the digital rendering and turns it, blue shimmering with green as he manipulates the projection. 

At the end of the table, Hill continues talking smoothly. 

“What are—” The words have slipped from Tony’s mouth before he can stop them. Hill falls silent and they all turn to look at him. 

“Mr. Stark?” she prompts quietly, dangerously. 

Well, _shit_. Tony’s hallucination is laughing at him, as if it isn’t bad enough that the man has been showing up to ravage him in his dreams on and off over the past couple of weeks. His stomach churns and dips, and he forces himself to lean back and smile. 

“What are your thoughts on bringing in a bartender to liven up this party?” He’s been trying on the professionalism hat for a while now, but sometimes it’s best to live down to expectations. “I mean, I’m just about ready to fall asleep in my seat, and I’m thinking that maybe some Kahlua would help.”

The room fills with the stink of offended representatives. Tony bares his teeth in a grin and looks around the table, pointedly ignoring Loki’s glee. 

“If you can’t contribute anything of substance, Mr. Stark, we can have the briefing reports sent your way later.” Hill’s tone is something firmer than a sigh, as if she cannot quite contain her glee at seeing him gone. 

Tony nods and gathers his papers, shoving them under his arm to conceal the way his hand trembles, and stands from the table. “Well then,” he says, standing, “it’s been torture as always, Agent Hill, and I hope I never have to sit through one of these things again.”

There is a collective, indrawn breath. Tony turns away from them and walks out, slow enough to seem confident. He passes through the door before they can begin shouting at him. He pushes down the hot feeling of Loki’s gaze pressing between his shoulder blades. 

_Not real._

Tony makes it two floors down before the tightness in his chest becomes too much and he stops the elevator at the nearest floor. He darts down the hall and toward the bathrooms, grateful to find that they are empty. 

He locks the door and his papers fall to the floor, scattering with the flutter of wings. He goes to the sink and starts the cold water running. It is reassuring as it numbs the tips of his fingers. 

“Not real. Not real,” he whispers under his breath. It’s a bad sign that his dreams have broken free of sleep and starting walking around in meetings. He hadn’t actually thought it was _that_ boring. 

“Do you doubt me?” Loki asks. He leans against the countertop several sinks down, his suit immaculately tailored, and casts no reflection in the mirror. 

Tony laughs, but the sensation sticks in his throat and turns to a rasp. He will not talk back to his hallucination, he’s decided. He shuts the water off and runs a numb finger across the back of his neck. It is bracing enough that he can ignore Loki and bend to pick up his papers. 

“Stark!” Loki snaps peevishly. “Look at me!”

Tony will not. If the past few weeks of restless sleep have been good for anything, it has been that they inured him to Loki’s touch. No longer does he flinch at the flash of black and gold in the corner of his eye, or pull away as the emerald of Loki’s magic lashes out. 

Then Loki snatches at him and hauls him to his feet, grip surprisingly _real_. Loki pulls him close enough that Tony can feel the heat and hardness of the other man’s body, and his heart sinks as he realizes that he is dreaming again. 

He grits his teeth and tries to wrench himself free, with little luck. 

“Let me go,” he snaps, relief making him lighter. If this is a dream, as least he isn’t hallucinating. 

Yet. 

“I do not think so, Stark. Are you yet unsatisfied with my presence?”

It takes Tony a second to parse that one, and when he has he laughs, loudly, right in Loki’s face. Loki shoves him back against the counter, hard enough that Tony expects bruises on the backs of his thighs. 

“Nothing you do could possibly satisfy me,” he snaps in return. He twists away, free enough to push Loki back and wriggle away.

Loki snatches at him, nails sharp on his wrists and shoving back the cuffs of his jacket. He claws at Tony’s skin, dragging him back and making Tony hiss. Loki reaches down and grabs Tony’s ass, lifting him bodily off the floor and shoving him across the countertop until his back hits the mirror, cold and fragile, and Tony sees the reflected light play across Loki’s face. 

“Are you sure?” Loki bares his teeth in and smile and wraps his fingers around Tony’s throat, not even flinching as Tony kicks at him, twisting violently to get away. He tightens his grasp so that Tony has to gasp for breath and leans close. His breath is cool on Tony’s cheek. “Does nothing satisfy you? Not even _this_?”

At the last sounding of the sibilant _ess_ sliding off Loki’s tongue, the sensation of his touch suddenly changes. It sweeps over Tony, as dizzying as being swept into the depths of the sea. Tony gasps and arches up, into Loki’s touch instead of away from it. 

He spreads his legs so that Loki can fit between, clawing at the edges of his suit and forcing the jacket open. Loki’s skin is _so close_ , and all of a sudden he craves it, wants the heat of Loki’s body pressed up against him. He tears at the edge of Loki’s shirt and frees it from his waistband, slides his fingers underneath and digs his fingers into the delicate skin at his sides. 

Loki gasps. His fingers tighten around Tony’s throat. Tony gasps for breath, and his vision swings between blackness and light, the blazing of the halogens in the ceiling burning away any coherent thought. He wants Loki with the raw, bleeding edge of desperation, and he doesn’t have breath to spare to wonder why. 

Sliding a hand up Tony’s thigh, Loki curls his palm over Tony’s cock, rubbing at the hardness straining against the pressure of his jeans. Tony shifts, hips rolling forward as much as he is able, and into Loki’s touch. The pleasure rolls through him again, heady and sickening, and he claws at Loki. 

“Are you satisfied yet, Stark?”

Loki has pulled back just far enough to look at Tony, and Tony stares deep into his eyes; they are bright green and gold, filled with the churning chasms of cosmic storms and the heady drip of magic, moving steadily through him with the beating of his heart. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Tony rasps. His voice is ruined. 

Loki lets him go. The magic leaves Tony with his touch, and Tony leans toward him for a second before Loki is gone completely, leaving nothing but the bright curve of his smile burning against the back of Tony’s eyelids. 

He is achingly hard, balanced on the cold counter, and alone. The bathroom smells of bleach and the tiles gleam white as Tony wrenches open the zip of his jeans. 

His cock fairly leaps free and he tugs at it, the edge of his nails and the thought of Loki’s dark hair the only things he needs to come within a few moments. His orgasm shatters him, leaves him limp on the countertop, bent over the edge. 

It takes Tony some time to come back to himself. He slides down and balances on shaking legs, splashing some cold water across his face. His throat aches like it was burned with acid. He tugs the ends of his sleeves down over the scratch marks that have begun to darken on his wrists.

_Real_ , he whispers in his mind. He can’t force even that word out. He blinks quickly. There is no dream to wake from. 

Tony glances up and meets his own gaze in the mirror. Something has been stripped away from it, and he hardly knows the man that stares back at him. He tugs at the collar of his shirt and gives up, turning away from the mirror and the purpling bruises on his throat, scratches drawn in the color of blood.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is very distracting, but Tony is very clever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Dubious Consent, Rimming, 69, Blowjobs, Sex Magic, Manipulation

Tony wakes: 

There are hands on his skin, long fingers sure and steady; there is breath skating across his chest, hot and promising; there are sibilant whispers in his ear, liquid and inhuman. Loki’s touch drags across him, sending jolts of sensation through Tony, and he pulls himself up from the haze of dreams and into the cold reality of the night. 

His bedroom is dark and cool, air conditioning turned high to fight the stagnant heat of the late summer, and Loki’s body is hot as it presses down on him. He is intensely real, his presence etched into the twitch of Tony’s muscles and the heated roll of arousal that makes his hips shift. Loki has carved himself into Tony’s bones and taken nest there. Tony doesn’t push him away anymore because he can’t always find the place where he ends and Loki begins. 

Loki’s face is buried in the curve of Tony’s neck, sucking hard enough on the skin there that little shivers of pain jolt through him. With each movement, his hips roll up and thrust against Loki’s palm, the only thing dividing them the thin cotton of Tony’s sheets. 

“What do you want?” he hisses, clutching at Loki’s shoulders.

Loki finishes at his neck with a nip and moves lower, fingers tightening around Tony’s cock. “I want you, Stark. Hadn’t you noticed?”

He does something with his magic that works its way beneath Tony’s skin, wrapping around his spine and making his vision swim. Tony shouts and arches up, pressing full against Loki. The god does not seem to be wearing his armor tonight, or any other kind of clothing for that matter. It makes Tony’s head spin.

“Liar. That‘s not why you’re here.” Tony may not end up on the winning side of their encounters these days, but he’s not called a genius for nothing, and this is the kind of puzzle that even an idiot could solve. 

Loki has been visiting him – in dreams and reality both – for nearly four months. He’s snappish, brutal, and entirely overwhelming. He sits beside Tony in meetings and no one else can see him, reaching under the table to work Tony to unbearable hardness while his eyes remain fixed on the speakers. He appears in the lab when Tony’s working on a new suit for Rhodey that will compensate for the nerve damage, and pulls Tony away to bend him over the workbench, gaze roaming across Tony’s designs all the while. His hands and eyes are constantly on Tony’s work, smile fixed on his face as if he finds human technology amusing and quaint. 

There is a _hunger_ in him – and Tony wants to know what for. 

He’s always loved puzzles. 

“You flatter me.” Loki looks up from working his way down Tony’s chest just long enough to send a sharp smile his way. 

“You’re a liar and madman,” Tony spits, pushing his knees between them, forcing Loki back so that his head can clear, just for a second. 

“Oh, Stark. Such words.” Loki sits back on his heels, spread to straddle one of Tony’s legs and pin him, and stretches. He rolls his shoulders and arches up. He obviously knows what a sight he is. There is not a blemish on any of his pale skin, and the curling hair that leads down to the curve of his cock is startlingly black. 

“What do you want from me, you bastard?” Tony says between his teeth. It is an effort to swallow. 

Loki lunges forward in a smooth motion, hands pressing into the mattress on either side of Tony’s face. He holds himself up above Tony, just close enough to feel the heat of him. 

“Such _profanity_. I think your mouth could be put to better use, don’t you agree?” 

He presses two fingers to Tony’s jaw and Tony’s vision fractures, spinning off into the patterns of a thousand kaleidoscopes as he gasps for breath. The world dips and spins, and he loses his sense of what is up and down. He has just enough mind remaining to wonder what Loki’s done to him before he blinks again and his sight clears. Loki’s cock is right before him, heavy and curving. It sways as Loki shifts, and Tony can’t quite breathe. The scent of Loki’s musk clings heavy to the back of his tongue. He presses his lips together and twines his fingers into the sheets to keep them still. 

“I’m not going—” he begins, and then Loki swallows down Tony’s cock, and he gasps in surprise and dizziness. 

_This_ is what seemed off to Tony about their positions. He hadn’t been able to see at first because of what Loki had done with his magic, but now he knew. They are positioned so that they can suck each other off at the same time, and Tony isn’t even sure why he has been arguing, if this is what Loki wants. 

He swallows and licks his lips. Loki’s cock is right there, a breath away, and Loki’s lips are on him, and Tony’s legs spread wide and he arches up, tearing his fingers from the sheets to pull Loki down. 

Loki tastes as he smells – of salt and musk, heavy on the tongue. His skin is delicate enough that Tony feels every ridge and vein with the brush of his tongue. Loki shudders at Tony’s touch, a shiver that passes through him and into Tony. Barely thinking, Tony moves with the feeling, rolling his hips into Loki’s mouth and sighing as Loki moves back against him again. 

He swallows Loki deep enough that his cock brushes the back of Tony’s mouth, edging at his throat and pressing deeper. Tony tightens his lips and sucks. Loki’s fingers dig into his hips and the muscles of his thighs twitch. Tony opens his mouth wider, wanting only more and _more_ , unable to take it but tugging Loki closer all the same, and feeling his arousal wind itself ever tighter at the root of him. 

Then, as Tony’s finally begun to get his rhythm and think again, Loki pulls back. 

He takes Tony by the hips and pulls back with what must be a monumental act of will. His cock pops free of Tony’s lips and he pushes, rolling Tony over onto his stomach. 

Tony yelps and scrambles to lift his hips, casting round to grab Loki and slap him perhaps, or do something much worse, but Loki just pushes him back down until he’s balanced on elbows and knees, face pressed to the sheets, and forces his knees apart. 

Loki’s fingers spread Tony’s cheeks with brutal ease, and then there is nothing but wet heat on Tony’s hole. 

Tony gasps, flinching away and then into the sensation as Loki’s tongue passes over him, liquid and smooth, working its way into him with cleverness born of practice, and Tony can’t stop imagining Loki’s face pressed against his ass, the flush that must be on his cheeks and the fever in his eyes. He groans, gritting his teeth as his cock throbs with sensation and Loki’s fingers dig into his thighs. 

Tony gasps and writhes, the clarity of his thoughts coming more and more undone as the heat within him begins to burn incandescent, and he shudders, collapsing against the bed as he comes. He curls around himself and closes his eyes with a sigh, going boneless. 

Loki does not stay to seek his own pleasure. He never does. 

Tony feels Loki’s fingers brush across his side and listens as Loki moves through the room, then leaves in a vacuum of silence. Tony lies in the bed, still curled and body singing, until he has counted to five thousand in his head and knows that Loki is truly gone. 

Then he sits and wipes himself clean. Loki’s magic is clever, and Tony hasn’t been able to catch him before, but he’s been working on some new tech that should register the distortions in energy fields that Loki has been giving off, and use that to reverse engineer his movements.

_This is real_ , Tony’s mind whispers to him, and he believes it. He just needs the proof. 

He walks across the room to where the StarkPad he left earlier this evening is sitting, keying in the sequence that will allow him to see every file Loki accessed while he thought Tony was sleeping. 

“Friday,” he says. “Playback.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony isn't patient, but maybe the wait was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite of all the chapters, merely for the kinks I incorporated. All the unusual pairing tags above come into play here. This takes place sometime after Thanos' ship intercepts the Asgardians on their journey to Earth. 
> 
> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Dubious Consent, Sex Magic, Genderbending (LITERALLY), Crazy Pronoun Usage, Fingering, Manipulation, Identity Porn

Tony has never been patient, and he’s been waiting for Loki long enough that by the night of the gala, he’s practically seeing Loki in every shadow. Tony hasn’t seen the god once in the two months since Loki went through the data on Tony’s StarkPad, and there hasn’t been this long of a gap between his visits since Tony began dreaming of him in the spring. He’s started to think that either Loki called his deception and stopped visiting because he’s angry, or he got what he needed and decided not to bother with Tony anymore. 

Neither option is satisfying, given that Tony doesn’t even know _how_ Loki was managing to visit him in the first place. No one else has ever been able to see him, and neither hide nor hair of Loki _or_ Thor has been seen in over a year. 

Tony grimaces and lifts his Manhattan to his lips, sipping and then grimacing. The ice clinks against the side of the glass, discordant against the jazz music that has been playing all evening. The drink is a bit unbalanced – needs more vermouth – and is doing nothing for his mood. He sips again, and his mind turns back to Loki again, as it has been too often of late.

Here is a list of things that Loki accessed on Tony’s StarkPad:  


  * maps of New York, Shanghai, Wellington, Mexico City, Johannesburg, and sixteen other major cities around the world
  * a recipe to make homemade pop-tarts
  * the Wikipedia pages for nuclear weapons and the Cold War
  * an astrology website with information on the constellations and gods that they represent in different cultures
  * an opinion piece on Tony’s involvement in Captain America’s disappearance



Tony has been going over the items in his mind with a scientist’s ferocity. He read the articles and the recipe, refreshed his knowledge of nuclear weapons and the city maps, and learned more about astrology than he’d ever wanted to know, and still doesn’t know why Loki was here. Was his poking around just curiosity? He’d gone to the trouble of circumventing Tony’s encryption on the Pad, as well as erasing the first three levels of metadata (luckily, the Pad had ten levels of accessible data, plus two more encrypted drives, and plenty of information had remained), so Tony thought that he must have wanted _something_. 

Something he hadn’t wanted Tony to know about.

The gala moves around Tony as he grimaces and sips his drink again. He’s supposed to be chatting up various political players and showing off how calm and respectable he can be, a trained monkey on the nation’s leash, but he’s in a foul mood. 

He grins at an older white man (government, elected, likely a conservative), and the man flinches away from the edge of his smile. Tony takes a savage sip of his drink and grimaces again at the spike of sourness that burns down the back of his throat. It’s starting to make him nauseous. 

“Do you need help with that?”

Tony blinks and looks up. A woman stands in front of him – a _gorgeous_ woman - obviously here as someone’s date, her face fixed in an expression of inquisitive helpfulness. She is pale, and her eyes are acutely sharp. Dark hair curls around her bared shoulders and over the edge of her gown, which seems made of liquid silver. Her lips lift slightly, and Tony feels the expression wake something deep inside him. 

“Let me tell you, it’s not the drink I need help with.” Tony lifts his glass and knocks it back, swallowing the mixture in a single gulp. He’s tempted to toss the glass aside but sets it down on a nearby cocktail table with barely a glance. “What brings a woman like you to a party like this?”

She laughs, and the sound is rich and full, lower than Tony expects. Her delight spreads across her expression and sharpens it further. 

“I’m just stopping by, Mr. Stark. What’s your excuse?”

Oh, she is delightful. Tony grins, and this time it’s a genuine smile. “I will regret this to the end of my days, but I actually _agreed_ to come to this shindig.” He steps forward and offers his elbow, all faux-courtesy. 

She reaches out and takes it, the barest of touches curling her fingers into the crook of his arm. 

“ _No,_ ” she hisses in mocking disbelief. “I can’t believe it.”

Tony has had, over the years, many women proposition him. He usually doesn’t need to try very hard to pull when he wants to. It is the way this woman moves, the sharp snap of her gaze across the room, the way she seems to look straight through Tony without trying, that tells him that he will need to work a bit harder this time. 

“Where can I escort you, my lady?” he asks with half a bow.

“I had considered getting some fresh air before I ran into you… And you seem like a man who needs to escape the crowd.”

He hasn’t always been this way, worn restless and flinching by the attentions of a crowd. But the thought of them alone together, under the night air? “That sounds perfect,” Tony replies warmly. 

They move through the gala together, skirting the edges of a dance floor filled with more groups holding intense conversations than pairs of dancers. Tony has to stop to greet a few of the guests – all meaningless small talk and pithy inquiries – and the woman sticks with him the whole way. She shifts closer to him as they walk, until she is nearly pressed to his side, moving with him as easily as if they’ve been walking together for years. 

She lifts his mind out of the morass that is the tangle of his feelings for Loki, and Tony is glad that for just a little while he won’t need to think about Loki’s motivations or the fate of the world – he can be himself. 

They leave the hall and the music fades, turning to distant strains of saxophone and piano as they walk toward a set of wide doors, and then outside. 

Tony pauses on the steps and blinks in surprise – he’d thought they were heading toward the street in front of the building, but they’re standing on a balcony overlooking a garden. It is a small, crowded with shadowed greenery and overlooked by skyscrapers on either side. The street is a short distance away, and it sings with the sound of traffic. Tony looks up toward the stars that hang above, but they are hidden by light pollution that turns the night sky into a warm ceiling. 

She lets him go and steps away, going to the railing and leaning forward into the darkness. “Ah,” she sighs. “It’s lovely to be alone, finally.”

Tony spends a second admiring the way her dress clings to the curves of her ass. He steps up beside her, close enough that he knows she must feel him. 

“I hate things like that,” he says casually. “Give me a lab and the open skies any day.”

She turns back to him. She is not wearing a necklace, and the openness of her collarbones invites his touch. 

“It must be hard for you, to be caged in the city all the time.”

Tony forces himself to focus. “I get out,” he says, and meets her gaze. Her eyes are pale, flashing grey and green in the distant streetlights. 

“Do you?” She reaches up and takes hold of his jacket, tugging at the collar and straightening it. The brush of her fingers pulls his attention the way nothing else has tonight, except thoughts of Loki. “Where do you go?”

Her fingers move nimbly across the silk of his jacket and down toward his trousers, before pulling back. 

“Nowhere important,” he rasps. “The country, sometimes other cities. Where I’m needed. Are you sure you don’t need to be getting back to your date?” He hates to ask, but Tony has been burned by this kind of situation too many times to eschew honesty now. 

She smiles up at him, amused. “I didn’t come with a date, Mr. Stark. I hope I have one now.”

She reaches up and curls her fingers around the back of his head, and pulls him down. 

Tony expects her to kiss him, but she does not. Instead she brushes her lips across the edge of his jaw and presses her body to his so that he can feel every curve of her against him. His cock, already stiffening, hardens noticeably and he knows that in a few seconds she’ll feel it against her. Her breath moves against his neck and she takes his earlobe between her teeth, worrying it to soreness. He reaches out to pull her close and wraps a hand around the curve of her ass. She bites down.

“ _Oh_ ,” he hisses. “Oh, I don’t--- I don’t even know your name.” He’s past the pain of embarrassment in asking. 

She moves against him, a hitch of the hips that lets him know that she feels his hardness and enjoys it, then puts her hands between them and puts distance between them. It is hard to see in this light, but she seems flushed, and her dress has begun to slip off her shoulder. 

“Don’t ask,” she sighs. She lays a hand on Tony’s chest and presses gently, backing him up until he feels the balcony rail and has to stop or fall. “I’ll tell you… but you have to tell me something first.”

There is something strange about her tone – not quite uneasy, but unsettled. He forces his arousal to the back of his mind and focuses on her, taking in the determined look in her eyes and the steadiness of her hand on his chest. When he glances down to it, her fingers curl into his shirt, crumpling the thousand-dollar fabric. 

“Did you know?” she asks. 

Her voice is soft, what Tony would call vulnerable if he didn’t know better. 

“Know what?” he asks in return. 

She shakes her head, all her coyness fled. “You’ve been so clever, Stark. You knew I was looking for something, so you tried to figure it out. You had your machines watch me – don’t think I didn’t feel them – and you tried to track me down. Did you tell them where I was? Did you _betray me_?”

Tony is a mass of confusion. He shakes his head to clear it, the sinking sensation of knowing that he’s chosen the wrong date draining all the heat from him. “I didn’t tell anyone anything, and I haven’t been watching you.”

“You have! You saw me, and he followed your gaze!” She shoves him back, but Tony has gone as far as he can and her shove is stronger than it has any right to be and he overbalances, tipping back against the railing and then falling into the open air over the garden. 

Tony has an instant to spare for panicked realization before she is on him, diving forward and hands snatching at his jacket. Her dress billows around her, silver and rolling as an oncoming storm, and her eyes flash green from within the dark shroud of her hair. They fall together, the air whistling around them. She wraps her legs around him and braces, pulling upward in a manner that Tony thinks is ludicrous and then wonderful because it _works_ , and he rises up through the darkness and emerges blinking, startled as a deer on the nighttime roads, into the half-light of his own bedroom. 

He lies at the center of his bed and she crouches above him, hair tangled and eyes wild. She watches him with something Tony now recognizes as madness in her eyes, and he knows it better than he knows himself. 

“Loki,” he breathes, and clutches at her wrists as she makes to pull away. 

“Let me go,” she snaps. “You stupid, disgusting creature, let me go.” She breaks his grip with a twist of her wrists and stands upon the mattress, towering above him. 

She is certainly Loki – Tony can see it plainly now. It is in the hard planes of her face, the confident manner with which she holds herself, and the daggers-edge to her eyes as she looks around the room. She is Loki smoothed over, all his brittleness taken away and turned to grace.

“Well, you could have let me know you were getting a makeover,” he says blandly, at last. 

She glares down at Tony and sinks to her heels, straddling him. The dress pools across Tony’s stomach and her muscles coil into tightness. Tony’s heart is still pounding from the almost-fall. 

“Is this a thing for us now?” he goes on before he can think it through. “The defenestration, I mean, because you really seem to have a thing for tossing me out windows and over railings. This is only the second time, but I call that a trend like wearing socks with flip-flops, and do you get off on that, because there has to be a word for that. Friday! What’s the word for sexual gratification found by throwing—”

Loki leans forward and grabs Tony’s lips. She digs her fingers in, nails longer and more pointed than he’s accustomed to. “Be silent.” She waits a moment, then pulls back slowly, one finger at a time. “I need to know who you told about me.”

“No one, babe, if I told they’d think I was crazy anyway, so what does it matter—”

“If you call me ‘ _babe_ ’ again,” she says, harsh as the crack of a whip, “I will sew your lips together myself.” 

Tony forces himself silent, watching her. He doesn’t doubt the veracity of her threat. She is back, finally, and seems madder than ever. What has happened, in the in-between time? And what is it she thinks he’s done? 

He waits, knowing that she hates silence. 

“We were…found,” she says at last. “In the depths of the void, he found us. And he destroyed us.”

Tony grips the sheets hard, pushes up onto his elbows. “Who found you?” he asks, wondering how he can be talking to Loki if she was _destroyed_. “What do you mean?”

She meets his gaze, and her eyes are cold and dark. “He tore us apart. It was only my skill that let me find my way here. I think the rest are dead.”

“Who?”

“All of them.” Loki’s tone has been stripped to rawness. 

Tony can’t help reaching up for her, to do what he doesn’t know, but as his fingers brush across her arm she flinches back and rounds on him, teeth bared in a snarl. 

“Do not try to comfort me, Stark. What do you think we are, _lovers_?” 

Her words are cruel, but there is something in her tone that says otherwise. Even angry, tense and coiled like a wild animal, Loki is captivating. Tony has felt many things for the god in the years since he first met Loki, but it has always been clear to him how Thor could love him so deeply. Loki is charming and beautiful when he wants to be, and he disregards rules entirely when it suits him. This version is no different. 

“We’re enemies,” Tony says, knowing that it’s the exact opposite of what they are, these days. Loki’s eyes spark with amusement and her lips smooth out, the anger dropping away from her suddenly. 

“And this is what enemies do, is it?” She leans forward and presses a hand to Tony’s chest, pushing back his jacket. It falls open and the cool air brushes across his skin where his shirt has been pulled up from his trousers. Loki smoothes her hand down, touch light and tantalizing, until she finds the sliver of exposed skin and pauses over it. “You must use the word _enemies_ differently on Midgard.”

With that she touches his skin, the barest brush of her fingers, and her magic surges up and through Tony. The sensation has become familiar to him by now, an echo of the pleasure that he normally feels, amplified a thousand times and delivered like a drug – straight into the vein. He gasps and shifts into the feeling, pressing against Loki’s fingers. The feeling of pleasure intensifies and his erection, which has been lagging, begins to harden again. 

He reaches for Loki but she dodges him, pulling her hands from him and sitting back. She reaches up and behind herself, back arching and hips moving, and unfastens the clasp of her dress. The fabric shifts and then falls, slipping down from her shoulders and over her breasts, pooling around her hips. Tony’s breath catches. 

“My god,” he breathes thoughtlessly, staring at the curves of her. Her breasts are heavy and the nipples dark; she hadn’t been wearing anything beneath the gown. Her eyes are shadowed as she looks down at Tony. 

“You needn’t pray to me,” she replies lightly. “I tired of that centuries ago.”

“It isn’t praying that I had in mind.” Tony moves, pushing up and turning, and he catches her with his hips and rolls on top of her. 

Her hair spreads across the tangled sheets and she stares up at him. Tony curls a hand around one of her breasts, the flesh there warm and soft, so soft compared to the hard muscles and armor that Loki normally prefers. Her knees are spread to either side of him and he rolls his hips against her, wondering if she’s bothered with any kind of underwear at all. She’ll be hot and wet around him when he slides home. All his uncertainty leaves him with a rush. 

Tony glances up and catches a glimpse of Loki’s face, which is still and pensive as if she’s turning an idea over in her mind. Then she looks down to him and hooks her ankles behind Tony’s back. Her thighs flex as she draws him in and his cock presses against her cunt. Tony braces himself to either side of her and reaches down to push her dress out of the way. 

She snatches his wrist. There is no magic in her touch. Tony’s erection throbs all on its own. 

“I know what you have in mind,” she says, weary recrimination in her tone. “And I have long since tired of that as well.”

She tugs to pull herself up, and for a blinding second Tony thinks that she is going to kiss him but she wraps a hand around the back of his neck instead and presses the other down between them, into the heat of the place where they meet, and rolls her hips. Tony makes a sound deep in his throat and shifts toward her, but her fingers have wrapped around her cock and the hand on the back of his neck is flooding him with pleasure deep enough that it begins to sweep him away. He clutches her close. She smiles and leans forward, and her skin is electric.

“Breathe,” she whispers in his ear. 

Loki’s magic begins to shift something inside Tony, something deep and essential that he can’t even name. The world moves around them and turns inside out. Her fingers flex around his cock and her hips move against him. The intensity of his pleasure moves deeper inside of him, taking root between his hips and throbbing with sensitivity. There is a spasm of pain that makes Tony cling to Loki, bracing through a mix of pleasure and startlement that tips them both forward. 

Loki’s fingers press into Tony, deeper than had ever been possible before, and touch something that makes pleasure spark. Tony’s breath comes fast and hips tremble. Loki flexes her thighs, pulling them tight together.

Tony tumbles across Loki as she pulls her hand up from between them, laughs and slides the fingers into her mouth. As she does so, Tony is dizzied, stomach dropping out from within as the magnitude of Loki’s magic sinks in. Loki has not just used her magic to draw out Tony’s pleasure, but used it to _remake_ Tony. They fit together differently now, and Tony’s stomach turns over with a desperate mix of desire and fear. 

“What the _fuck_ —” Tony snarls, nearly choking on the sound of her own voice. 

Loki laughs, arching up and against Tony. She seems consumed with delight, and the touch of her hands spills over with pleasure, forcing it beneath Tony’s skin and into her veins. Tony gasps and scrabbles for purchase on the bed, wanting to be _away_ and at the same time _closer_ , because this is a kind of pleasure that she never imagined having – it is rooted deeper within her, both more immediate and more distant than what she’s used to feeling. Each breath tightens the noose that Loki has slipped around her mind, pulling her closer and closer to damnation. 

She can’t pull herself away; she doesn’t want to run, even now.

Loki pulls Tony close, pressing a kiss to the curve of her neck that becomes a playful bite. Tony starts as Loki curls a hand around one of her breasts (because she has _breasts_ ) but the touch is soft and warms her, and the pinch that Loki gives her nipple sends a jolt straight down into her. 

With a groan, Tony gives in and lets Loki pulls her down. Loki’s legs loosen at last and she uses the space to reach back down between Tony’s legs, carding her fingers through the thick hair there and sliding through the slick folds of flesh to press against her cunt.

“ _Yes_ ,” Tony gasps, despite herself. 

Loki’s fingers rub against a place that aches with pleasure. Tony can’t stop her hips from moving in response. Loki’s fingers are nimble and strong, and Tony moves on them, fucking herself in the only way she knows how, striking up a rhythm with her body that Loki played expertly. Loki wraps her free arm around Tony, pulling her against her so that their breasts and stomachs rub together, their muscles flexing in tandem as they move. Loki’s mouth is pressed to her neck, teeth bared, and Tony’s fingers dig into Loki’s back. Her grip must be hard enough to draw blood and she dreams of the way Loki’s skin would split and bruise with the force of Tony’s pleasure, the bright red of the blood dripping out and onto the sheets, the scent of copper filling the air. 

Tony gasps, and gasps again, as Loki’s fingers crook within her and rub patiently, and her orgasm steals her breath away and leaves her with a moment of perfect, unbroken blackness, as endless as the void. 

Tony stays there for a time as Loki’s magic ebbs away, leaving the twin aches of relief and loss to battle each other into weary confusion. 

It is a long time before Tony wakes fully and realizes that everything is back where it belongs, and that the memory of Loki’s touch belongs to another body altogether. He blinks up at the ceiling and rolls onto his side. He feels entirely unbalanced and takes a moment to breathe, feeling himself settle into maleness once again.

Loki sits on the bed with crossed legs, every inch as beautiful as a man as he was as a woman, and looks Tony over. There is nothing but hardness in his eyes. 

“What kind of enemies are we, Stark, that you would give yourself so completely to me?”

The words hang in the air. Tony searches for a response and finds nothing. Loki has stolen his cleverness the same way he took Tony’s mind, and he’s turned Tony so complete inside out that he isn’t sure which way it up anymore. 

Tony sits. He looks away from Loki and around the room, gaze restless. 

“We’re not enemies anymore, Loki,” he says at last. “I don’t know what that makes us.” He looks back and meets Loki’s gaze, facing down the depths of pain that lurk within. Tony knows that endless stare – he sees it in the mirror in the mornings. “I didn’t sell you out. I haven’t told anyone that you’ve been here. I swear.”

Something flickers in Loki’s eyes and he looks away. His fingers tap on his knees and he stands with a surge of motion. With a flick of his fingers clothes unfold themselves around him – a dark suit, well-tailored, and a buttoned shirt beneath. The clothing makes him seem paler and slimmer, the grim reaper made flesh. Tony watches him walk away. 

“I didn’t sell you out,” Tony says again, as if Loki hadn’t heard. Loki pauses at the center of the room. “I saw what you’ve been looking up. The cities and articles… What do you want, Loki? What are you afraid of?”

There is a breath of silence before Loki turns back around, smooth and smiling. 

“I fear nothing, Stark. As to what I want… I’m afraid that even you, with all your _science_ and cleverness, cannot give it to me.” 

His smile is tinged with sadness as he looks away, facing out toward the city lights and stealing Tony’s breath for an instant, and then is gone, leaving nothing but a chill in the air and a glimmer of green. 

A shiver steals its way down Tony’s back and his heart twists.

_Damn._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Desk Sex, Hand jobs, Manipulation

It is when Tony wakes to the sound of papers rustling and is unsurprised to find Loki seated cross-legged at the foot of his bed that he knows that he’s in trouble. 

No, that’s a lie – Tony has been in trouble for a long time when he finally wakes up to find Loki at the foot of his bed, papers spread around him and hair in a disarray, and does nothing but watch. He doesn’t call Friday, who has long since received instructions to turn her gaze elsewhere when Loki calls; he doesn’t reach for the bracelet on his beside table that would call his armor two him in 39.2 seconds; he doesn’t jump up or shout or interrupt Loki’s thoughts. He watches Loki at work, and he waits. 

Tony’s brain is quick to start, as usual. He looks Loki over and catalogues the tangles of his hair and the dark circles the ring his eyes. He sees the paleness of Loki’s skin and smells the stink of his sweat. Loki wears human clothes – plain trousers and a dark shirt, worn at the knees and stained with dirt. He’s been digging for something, and he hasn’t slept in days. Tony sits and pushes back the sheets, rubbing at the stubble of his unshaven beard, and goes across the room. 

“Friday,” he says hoarsely, “coffee.” 

“Good morning to you as well, sir,” she murmurs in reply.

The brew is delivered to him within seconds, the machinery built into the wall sighing as it pours an espresso into his cup. He cradles it between his hands as he walks back to bed, the bittersweet smell washing over him. He steps around Loki’s papers and sits. 

They are plans today. Missile plans. 

“I thought you said that, and I quote: _The weapons of Midgard are laughably inadequate to take on a being of Thanos’ might_.” He does his best with the accent, but it doesn’t make Loki so much as sneer. 

He looks up at Tony blandly. “I am considering modifications.” 

Tony takes a bracing sip of his coffee. Loki has not ever taken the time to explain what Thanos is, but Tony is not blind to the terror that drives Loki to such extremes as plotting late into the night and stealing Tony’s missile plans to consider ‘modifications’.

Tony will have to have a chat with Friday later. Those plans should have been locked away where even Loki couldn’t find them. 

“How soon?” he asks instead. What he means is: _How long do we have before Thanos comes to kill us?_

Loki looks up and then away, a flinching blow. 

“That soon, huh?” Tony quaffs the rest of his espresso in a single cup. It sears down the back of his throat, gouging out his insides, and he drops the cup onto the sheets. He pushes the papers between them aside and Loki makes a noise in the back of his throat so Tony asks, “When’s your birthday?”

Loki jolts and looks up at him, vulnerable in the instant before he resorts to derision. Tony waves a hand to cut him off. 

“Alright, I get it – Viking-space-gods are too good for birthdays and live forever. I won’t ask again. It’s just that I wanted to give you something and a birthday seemed the opportune moment but you don’t _have_ one, so I guess this’ll just be a Tuesday kind of thing.” He stands, shaking off the nervousness at the pit of his stomach. “Watch closely. Friday, bring up Project Big Head.”

She brings up the three-dimensional rendering that he’s been working on in between Loki’s visits because those visits can hardly be called productive. It’s been nearly two months since Loki first mentioned Thanos and destruction, since he first began appearing to Tony in person. There have been a few close calls since Loki started showing up in the flesh, so to speak, and Tony has entertained fond thoughts of the days when Loki would only appear in his dreams. With a gesture, he unlocks the encryption and the rendering unfolds. 

“Project Big Head,” he says grandly. “Because all aliens have big heads, you know, and this is the plan to kill one.”

Loki stands slowly as Tony explains his plan. It involves an unprecedented amount of international political cooperation, a healthy dose of threats and intimidation, the resurrection of a few superheroes who Tony would have rather remained disappeared ( _honestly_ , he doesn’t know why they all romanticize Rogers so – he’s just a self-righteous libertarian idiot with no respect for sovereignty who puts his personal issues ahead of the global and universal good), a plan for a new suit that was bloody fucking fine if he said so himself, and a whole lot of luck and terror, probably. There is a high probability of failure, but also a chance of success. Tony knows this world better than Loki, and certainly better than Thanos, and he knows how to fight back. 

Humans have had a lot of practice fighting against invading armies.

As he talks, Loki reaches for the rendering and turns it, flicking through the schematics as Tony pulls them up. He brings them closer to examine them. The blue light of the projections pours over him, turning him into another kind of creature entirely. Breathless, Tony swallows around the desire that rises in his throat and continues talking. 

He talks and talks, hardly thinking about the words that pour from them, using them as levers and ropes to push Loki forward and tie him into place. To keep him fighting and plotting, because he’s probably the only one who will be able to take care of Thanos when it comes down to it. 

“And so,” he finishes at last, when he has shown Loki all there is to see, “this would have been better on your birthday, but you don’t have one of those. Maybe when you kill Thanos we can call _that_ your birthday.”

Loki pushes the projections away. He stares at the place where they had been, now nothing but empty air. Tony watches him for a few breaths, then turns away and heads back across the room for another cup of coffee – a proper one this time. Maybe he’ll be able to tempt Loki into one as well this morning. 

He’s pulled back before he can cross half the room. Loki’s fingers are cool to the touch and his grip unbreakable. He tugs Tony around to face him and grasps Tony’s jaw with his other hand. Jolting, Tony forces down the instinctive panic and stays as still as possible. Loki forces his chin up and frowns down at him, scouring him with his eyes. 

“What is it about you, Stark, that makes you think that you can defy the laws of the universe? Thanos brings death to all.” 

Loki’s tone is dire. Tony lifts his brows in response. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me before? I guess I’ll just have to lie down and wait for him to kill me.” He jerks against Loki’s grasp but can’t pull free. “I will _never_ let a monster like that destroy the things I love.” He swallows hard. “I could ask you the same thing, you know – why are _you_ fighting him?”

Loki’s eyes burn from the inside and he shoves Tony back. The force of the shoves sends Tony to the floor, and he scrambles to stand. Loki is coming, chasing after. 

“Thanos has already taken everything I love and hold dear,” he snarls. “The only thing I have left is revenge.”

Tony gets his feet beneath him at last and grabs at Loki as Loki reaches for him, pressing him back against the desk he so rarely uses anymore. 

“Fine with me,” Tony gasps. “I could do with a good revenge smiting.”

Loki narrows his eyes. His hands are tight on Tony’s arms, and his touch holds no magic and no pleasure. Nonetheless, Tony feels himself begin to harden in his briefs. He swallows hard and brings his hands up to grip Loki’s arms back, holding himself still and hoping that Loki doesn’t notice. 

“You are a fool. Perhaps that is where your brilliance lies.”

Tony huffs a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s probably true,” he admits. 

Loki pushes closer, crowding him against the desk, and pushes a knee between Tony’s thighs. Tony exhales sharply and lets him, lifting his chin to look Loki in the face. It is a hungry expression that Loki wears, one that Tony knows well. He lets go and leans back, using his hand to brace himself, and lets his legs fall open. 

With a sharp intake of breath, Loki reaches down and cups Tony’s erection, fingers moving across Tony’s briefs and toying with the growing hardness. Tony shifts into the touch and Loki leans over him, shirt brushing across Tony’s chest and breath hot on his cheek. 

“You must know of your brilliance,” Loki whispers to him. His voice had deepened, thickened. “You have devised a clever strategy to attack Thanos from all directions, confining his power instead of confronting it head on. He will not know what to do against such an enemy. The uncertainty will _destroy_ him.”

Tony grins. “We can only hope.”

He feels Loki’s answering smile in return. Loki moves down with an inhale, pressing his lips to Tony’s neck and slipping his fingers into Tony’s briefs and taking his erection in hand. His touch is growing warmer, and Tony sighs. He reaches up and wraps his arms around Loki, pulling him close and threading his fingers into Loki’s hair. His legs move to wrap round Loki and he presses their chests together. Loki’s shirt is thin enough that he can feel the muscles moving beneath it, hard as any armor and yet much easier to break apart. 

Loki presses a finger against Tony’s slit and Tony moans in the back of his throat, a slight and needy sound. His desire moves through him, a physical thing that makes his heart pound and his breath come faster. He braces himself on the desk and moves against Loki, slow and steady. The morning sun pours over his back, and it is hot to the touch. 

They shift together, Tony’s breath coming fast and hard, Loki steady as a rock but for his heartbeat, which Tony can feel where he presses his lips to the skin of Loki’s neck. He licks Loki there, tasting the salt of his sweat, and then bites down. Loki snarls and clutches him tighter, the pressure only making Tony want him more. 

Their breaths mingle and Tony hisses against Loki’s skin, whispering things he won’t want to recall later, until finally he feels his release open up around him, blistering and dizzying at once. 

Loki pulls his hand away from Tony and lets Tony sag back on the desk. He lifts his fingers and licks them clean, and Tony feels something within him jerk back to attention. He reaches out, but Loki steps back out of reach. He tugs at his trousers and Tony is surprised to see that he doesn’t seem to be aroused at all. 

“But—” he begins, not knowing where to go next. The sight of Loki so composed has left him feeling abandoned. 

“Perhaps, as you have said, I will soon have a birthday worth honoring.” 

Tony’s gaze darts up to try to catch the grin on Loki’s face. It is slight, but present. He’s waiting for something, but Tony doesn’t know what. He stares at Loki until Loki blinks and looks away, smile vanishing. There is a wildness to his eyes, an intensity of green in them that is not natural.

“Until then, Tony Stark. When I have my revenge, we will speak again.”

He gestures and the papers gather themselves up into a neat pile. The room takes on a slight emerald tinge and Tony’s breath freezes in his chest. The lights in the ceiling dim and fizz, then turn back on. Tony jumps off the desktop and looks around. 

“What have you done?”

But Loki is gone, and he’s left his papers behind. There is a sinking feeling in Tony’s stomach. 

“Sir, I must report that there has been a data breach.”

Tony can’t help it – he freezes, then laughs, wildly and hysterically. Loki must have liked his plan a lot, because he’s just stolen it. Tony sits down on the best, laughing until his sides ache. 

The funniest part is that Tony would have given it all to him, had Loki just asked.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end and a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks/Warnings in this chapter: Character Death, Arguing and Abandonment Issues, Battle-Typical Violence, Kissing

In the end, after all their planning, everything goes awry, and Thanos still dies. 

Tony has had to strip his suit from his body – it lays in pieces around him, twisted and melted at the edges. The dust still hangs in the air, ashy on the tongue, and Tony stares down at the broken body of Steve Rogers – hands curled loosely at his sides, suit blackened by blood and fire, face peaceful and pale. He determinedly feels nothing. The ache of regret has been carved from him by the death of cities and friends, and all he wants to do is go back home and to his bed, pull the covers up and cower in the darkness. 

They all stand together, at last. Thor and his new companions are across the circle from Tony – he glances over the parade of multi-colored skin and the patch over Thor’s eye and says nothing. He looks to Natasha, who has stripped her hair nearly to white, and it has the appropriate mood of mourning for the moment. Clint is by her side, shoulders drooping and quiver empty. Bruce, Rhodey, Wanda, even Strange in his cloak of doom are all there, watching as if Rogers is just going to take a breath and wake up, blue eyes flying wide. 

He doesn’t, because he’s dead. It makes Tony sick. 

Tony glances up and his eyes meet Loki’s, the grey-green shining and ambivalent. His long hair is sticky with sweat and blood, and his face holds a terrible pallor. He stands beyond the edge of their circle as if he fears to come any closer. 

Loki stares at Rogers as well, but his face holds no shock, just quiet recognition. He knew this was coming. As if he’s heard Tony’s thoughts, Loki looks up and catches Tony’s gaze, freezing for an instant. Then Loki’s magic gleams emerald and moves across him like a wave, carrying him away. 

Tony steps back. He reaches up to the comm in his ear, and his fingers are shaking. 

“Friday,” he begins, but he cannot say anything more. Words fail him. 

-

It is three months after the defeat of Thanos that Tony sees Loki again. 

He is on the news, grinning wide and standing amongst a cheering crowd. They love him now, it seems – all sins can be forgiven, if you’re willing to brag about how you helped kill a god. 

Or a monster. Tony can’t tell the difference any more. 

“Friday,” he snaps, and she whisks the news footage away without a word. He leans back down over the armor he’s been working on with a scowl, Loki’s sharp-edged grin and the light in his eyes shining in Tony’s mind. 

-

Loki’s magic leaves scars.

He wakes in the middle of his bed, wrapped tight in his sheets and the warmth of the sun and thinks, for a blinding moment, that Loki is there with him. He can almost feel the touch of Loki’s fingertips, teasing him and tugging at his cock. He feels the rough edges of Loki’s nails, chewed over and shattered by unwise fights, as they slide under the sheets and claw at his sides. He feels Loki’s teeth on his neck, an instant from biting down, and he lifts his chin to bare his throat. 

But then, whenever he gasps and opens his eyes, Loki is gone. 

This time, Tony knows that Loki was never there. He’s learned the difference between reality and delusion by now – even Loki’s twisted version of reality – and this one is cold and unfeeling. 

He turns on his side and takes himself in hand, and determinedly doesn’t think about wild eyes and the touch of magic. 

-

Things go back, as much as possible, to normal. 

The Avengers have been shattered, no longer a team in any sense of the word, and yet they still meet sometimes – to drink or to spar, or to fight back those who threaten to use their powers for evil. 

Tony goes out to fight the bad guys the most often, because he has a near-unending supply of suits, he can fly to crises across the world within a few hours, and he no longer feels the need for sleep. 

(That is a lie – Tony _needs_ sleep, it’s just that he does everything possible to avoid it. The pain of long hours in the suit, of fight after fight without rest, is infinitely better than the touch of his dreams.)

It is in the sky over Vladivostok that he finally sees Thor again, fighting a small army of Doombots that have threatened to take over the city and force a nuclear-level confrontation. Thor is wielding his lightning with admirable dexterity – tendrils of force crackle through the air, searing dangerously close to Tony and all his delicate electronics, but none touch him. The bots weave between the electric bolts, forcing Tony to stay close enough to shoot them down. 

Thor’s lightning is less than effective against the Doombots. 

“I do not understand!” he cries out, voice crackling through the comm loud enough to make Tony wince. “These are creatures of electricity, are they not? They should be dead by now!”

Tony fires off another blast, sending two of the three that have been tailing him spinning away in a dodge. He curses under his breath. Down below, Thor lands and his lightning lashes out, a white-blue crackle that curls around the edge of the buildings. Vladivostok’s buildings are mostly low and old, crumbling at the edges. Tony hates it; it’s hard enough to dodge the Doombots when he has skyscrapers to hide behind, and this city has given him nothing. 

“Just fry them!” he shouts through the comm to Thor. He turns over in the air and raises his hands, firing enough blasts at the bots that he drops one and the other two fall back, circling like wolves. 

He’s watching them when he feels a jolt at his back. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the codes running for the shoulder rockets and he frowns, turning. Below him a Doombot falls, sparking and dead, toward the ground. 

“It came up behind you,” Friday’s voice informs him calmly, “so I took care of it.”

Tony huffs, grins. “Thanks, girl. You’re the best.”

“As you made me,” she rejoins warmly. 

The other Doombots are out of sight. Tony runs a scan over the area but brings up nothing within a block, so he circles around and down, back toward the flash of Thor’s lightning. 

“Lost my tail. On my way back,” he tells Thor.

He’s nearly back to the others when a great black serpent rises up from between the buildings ahead. Tony pulls back, heart pounding, and stares. It is as wide around as an eighteen-wheeler and at least ten times as long. Its scales are smooth and gleaming. The Doombots circle it frantically, a buzzing hive darting in and trying to take it down, but it doesn’t seem to pay them any mind. 

The snake coils back on itself. Then, in a flash, its head darts forward and it seizes one of the bots between its jaws, crunching down. The rest of the hive pulls back, and then moves in again. They are close enough that Tony’s view of the snake disappears for an instant. 

He jolts and pushes into action again, flying forward. 

A flash. Lighting darts through the air like the upturned roots of a tree, snatching at the bots and pulling them down. The snake rears its head, scattering the remaining bots with a gesture. Its jaws close on another bot and the silver body shatters. The snake tosses the broken bot away like a child’s toy and dives down, vanishing. Tony rockets round the corner, repulsors raised and ready, just in time to see Loki standing in the center of the square. 

Three bots stand against him, moving through the air and circling Loki. They are fast enough that Tony hesitates.

“Friday,” he says. 

“Of course, sir.”

Her voice is quiet. He lets her take over the nuances of aiming their last missiles at the bots and watches. 

Loki is wearing his armor, ridiculous horned helmet and all. He holds nothing but a pair of daggers in his hands, little protection between himself and the enemy, and stands in a half-crouch, ready to spring. His eyes are narrowed and there is a smile on the edges of his lips. Tony’s heart turns over in his chest. 

“There is a 62% chance of hitting Loki if we attempt to take out all three at once,” Friday informs him. 

“What if we go for two?” The boys are circling Loki even closer now. He hasn’t seen Tony – doesn’t have the attention to spare. 

“The probability of mortal injury decreases to 19%”

“Good enough,” Tony says. “Aim for two.”

“As you say.” Friday adjusts the targeting system and sends the missiles off. They sear through the air and two of the bots fall, one after the other. 

Loki dives forward, through the shower of sparks and rendered bits of metal. He reaches out and grasps the last bot, dragging it down to the ground and clutching it close. Tony’s heart stops as he tries to see what the _fuck_ Loki’s doing. He flies forward as the emerald of Loki’s magic crawls over the bot. Loki steps back, wrenching a long dagger free from its chest. The bots falls and Loki gestures. The blade vanishes.

He looks up and spies Tony just as he lands. 

They stare at each other for a long time – Tony through the faceplate and Loki from beneath the shadow of his horns. Then there is a great roar from nearby and the air crackles, and they both flinch away from each other, turning toward Thor. 

“That was not funny!” Thor cries, whirling from his own path of destruction. The ground is scorched and blackened, and the Doombots have fallen around him in a circle. His eye gleams white and silver. 

Loki grins, spreading his hands wide. The emotion sits easily on him. “You have to admit, it was a little—”

Thor snarls and turns away, shaking his head. Loki’s hands fall to his sides and his smile slides away, leaving him flat and empty. 

“That was you,” Tony says, only half asking. 

Loki turns, brows lifting and grin sliding back into place. It is charming and warm, but Tony isn’t fooled. “Who saved you? Yes, it was.”

“The snake,” Tony says flatly. “That was some trick.”

“Trick? You think very little of me, Stark.”

“When have you given me reason to think better?” Tony isn’t in the mood for banter today. It was burned out of him six months ago when Thanos fell ~~and Loki left~~ , and hasn’t come back. 

“I am wounded,” Loki sighs. “After all I have done for you. All I have sacrificed.” His tone and face turn sharp, vicious but for the openness of his posture and the curve of his smile.

“Tell me, then,” Tony snarls. “Tell me what you sacrificed. Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t seem like you did very much at all except _steal_ from everyone who tried to help you.” He steps forward, the metal of his suit crunching across the broken glass and metal on the ground. He lifts his faceplate and glares at Loki directly. 

Loki’s expression hardens, the false confidence wiped away. Thor is still busy examining the bots across the square, speaking to himself in a low voice, off-comm. “ _Who_ tried to help me, Stark? You cannot mean yourself. All you did was lay down and spread your legs. You gave up your secrets easily enough when I touched you.”

_That_ was unfair. “You came to me,” Tony hisses back. “You came to me when everything you loved had been destroyed. You came and told me you wanted revenge, and I _gave_ it to you!” It didn’t matter that their plans had gone awry. In the end it had all worked out, and Thanos had breathed his last beneath Loki’s watch. “You’re pathetic. I gave you your revenge, but you still have to tell yourself that you took it from me. Fine. If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that you _took advantage_ of me and then left me when it suited you, go right ahead. Just don’t expect me to save your ass again. You’re on your own.”

Loki’s mouth has drawn into a thin line of displeasure. “Stark, I—”

“Brother!” Thor’s call bounces off the buildings and through the comm. Tony flinches. “Come see this! I believe these creatures have been modified for some ulterior motive!”

Frowning with displeasure, Loki turns to look at Thor. In the same instant, Tony dives forward to the nearest bot and looks down into it, registering the flashes of blinking lights and the pattern of connections that have been crudely put in – last-minute, it seems, by someone who wasn’t sure what they were doing – and reassembles the structure of the device in his mind. When all the parts have fitted into place, he surges up to his feet and fires his repulsors, flying toward Loki. 

The god doesn’t have time to do much more than flinch back, head whipping toward Tony, who hits him at full speed and carries him off his feet just as the remains of the Doombots explode one right after the next, concussive blows that slap against the sides of Tony’s suit and throw him off balance. The square fills with fire that blinds him as the suit’s alarms wail in his ears and he clutches Loki close. 

Finally they break free of the conflagration and Loki twists free, shoving Tony back so that they both land hard, rolling across the street and sidewalk until they fetch up against a brick wall. 

They are tangled together, breathless. Tony’s interface flashes and careens; he shoves back his faceplate with a grimace and looks down on Loki, who has landed beneath him and lies panting and angry. He is smeared with soot and crispy at the edges, and Tony can’t help the bark of laughter that rises in him, because Loki looks like nothing so much as an angry cat right now. 

“Stark, so help me—” Loki shoves him back, pushing the suit’s weight easily in his aggravation. He nearly has his feet beneath him when Tony grabs him and fits his fingers around the back of Loki’s neck, and pulls him up into a kiss. 

It is stiff at first, teeth to teeth as Loki freezes and then pushes back against Tony – but not very hard, or he would have gotten free. Tony sticks with it, nipping at Loki’s bottom lip until he relaxes, swiping his tongue across his lips until Loki reaches out and wraps his arms around Tony, keeping him close. Their armor gets in the way of feeling very much, and Tony is glad to see when he shifts back that there is a flush on Loki’s cheeks. 

Loki’s throat works as he swallows. “Thor,” he said, the very last word that Tony expects to hear. “I have to go back– Thor was in the explosion—”

“All of a sudden you care?” Tony asks pointedly. “Don’t worry about Thor. He’s the god of thunder. He’ll be fine.”

Even now, with the distant wail of sirens beginning and the crackle of the fire behind them, he hears a shout from the center of the blaze. It sounds angry.

“See? He’s fine.” Tony flaps a hand in that direction and leans back toward Loki. “Thor bounces back like a… Well, a very bouncy thing.”

“Indeed. And yet when you throw him he doesn’t bounce very far at all.”

That sparks another laugh out of Tony. “You know,” he says, “I don’t care that you stole my plans, or that you’re incapable of an honest conversation, or that you don’t drink coffee, which is a mortal sin.” Loki face pinches up. “But I need to correct you on one thing: you didn’t once take advantage of me. I spread my legs because I wanted to. Because you made me feel good. If you’d ever stayed long enough, I would have showed you what that means to me.”

“Oh?” Loki’s brow arches. 

In response Tony reaches up and kisses him again, using the repulsors to give him an extra few inches of height. He doesn’t stop until they’re both breathless, Tony having pulled Loki’s helmet off the knot his fingers in Loki’s hair, Loki’s magic making it feel like his fingers are pressed against his skin, even through the layers of the suit. 

“Stay,” Tony says against Loki’s lips. “Just for a little while. Just until…” He flounders until the idea comes to him in a flash, perfect and strange. “Until December. Stay until December third.”

Loki pulls back. “Why then?”

Tony lets himself look superior for a moment, until Loki frowns. 

“Don’t you remember? It’s your birthday. We agreed. The day you killed Thanos is your birthday, and that’s the day he died. I didn’t think—”

Loki kisses him this time, lips hard and brutal, using teeth and tongue to push Tony back down until his feet touch the ground and Tony’s entire body thrums with expectation. 

“How _mortal_ of you,” Loki sighs. “You wish me to have a birthday. And what happens after that, Stark? What will I do then?”

Tony smiles at him. “Whatever you want, Loki. Just like always. The both of us can do _whatever_ we want.”

Loki’s grin is a manic thing, filled with daggers and madness and clever plans. Tony knows that he’ll never be able to trust that grin, no matter how many times he sees it. 

“Yes,” Loki says, stretching out the word so that it drips with implication. “I will stay.”

It doesn’t stop Tony from grinning back. 

He laughs and the sound is hoarse in the back of his throat, broken with relief and eagerness and something very close to hope. He reaches up and Loki reaches down and they kiss, the fire raging behind them, and then kiss again. 

And again. And again. 

Again.

∇

end.


End file.
